Degania After 10 Years - Yosef Bussel

In those days they used to laugh at us; the young people coming to work here. But we did not only want to work, we also wanted to create. When we came to Kinneret and expended sweat and blood, we were not yet satisfied. We created the kvutza and invested our souls and all our yearnings in it. We saw the colonies sub­sisting on the exploitation of others and we said: "we shall create a form of settlement which obliges us to work ourselves, not through others and not under the management of others." Thus the kvutza grew and served a number of aims: a) the con­ quest of labor - without masters and supervisors, a conquest combining the redemption of land and the redemption of labor; b) it offered an example by our labor; all around us work was being conducted in primitive fashion, turning civilized men into savages; the kvutza offered cultivated, modern labor; c) it enabled newcomers to adapt to arduous labor; d) the conquest of new places, a difficult task under the Turkish regime; e) finally- the crowning glory of the kvutza: it en­ abled us to become the arbiters of our own lives, to create a life of equality in the economic sense and equality between members of both sexes.

Now ten years have passed and what are the conclusions?
 
As far as I am concerned, they are quite clear; we must con­tinue to maintain this instrument, the kvutza, as long as the above-mentioned problems have not been solved. As long as we believe that in order to desire new life and aspire to it. it is not enough to uphold theories: they must be physi­cally applied by ourselves; as long as there exist in our midst people who strive for the regeneration of our national and social life - the kvutza will be our cherished goal.